Chuck vs the Past REDUX
by Notorious JMG
Summary: Years have passed. Sarah's memories have begun to return. "Serenity" safely plies the space lanes. Chuck's days aboard the old Firefly are long in the past - although for Kaylee, a consistent reminder is present every day. And then, an old enemy returns to haunt them - and when he does, all hell breaks loose. Follows "Chuck vs. the Future" REDUX; occurs two years after "Chuck"s end
1. Prologue

_**Chuck vs. the Past **_**Redux – Prologue**

_**Author's Note:**__ Having gone more than a year and a half without so much as touching my previous attempt at this, I went back and looked at it, and realized that, to me, it sucked. So, I ditched it.  
With but a semester of my master's degree left to go, I'm hoping to get back into the mood for writing. So, I bring you my sequel to the Redux version of _Chuck vs. the Future_. And yes, I'm still going to finish _Fake Empire_. It HAS been less than a year since the last time I updated it, which is more than I can say for the former _Chuck vs. the Past_ Redux._

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Frank Mullins – Damian Lewis  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Bryce Larkin – Matthew Bomer  
Mike Tweedum – Jason Bateman  
Rick Lorenz – Michael Biehn

* * *

**2125 hours, Alliance Mean Time**

**14 February 2519  
**_**Enterprise**_

It was time.

Frank Mullins reached under the mattress on his bunk, and retrieved the shard of glass he had picked up, way back on Sihnon. Moving to the door of his cell, he pulled it open, and exited into the airlock.

Nobody appeared to be on the lower deck, which was good. Mullins looked at the airlock controls, and pushed the button that said "EQUALIZE."

A moment later, there was a hiss of air, and the airlock hatch popped open. Mullins yawned to pop his ears, and pushed himself out onto the lower deck –

Just in time to run into John Casey, coming out of the lavatory. "What the FU-"

Mullins cut Casey off, stabbing the shard of glass as deeply into Casey's gut as he could. The NSA agent doubled over in pain, and Mullins took advantage of that to bring his knee up into Casey's chin.

Casey tumbled backward, his head smacking against the wall. Satisfied that he was unconscious, Mullins moved toward Casey and pulled his Glock from his belt.

Leaving Casey floating in mid-air, Mullins navigated toward the ladder up to the flight deck and pulled himself upward. "I would advise you all be very still," he said ominously as he emerged.

Four sets of eyes turned very slowly toward him, and then four sets of hands went upward. "Where's Casey?" Sarah Walker asked quietly.

"Unconscious," Mullins replied. "And you're going to join him shortly."

Bryce Larkin frowned. "What, you're going to knock us all out?"

"Nah," Mullins said. "I'm going to kill him, and then kill all of you. Since you have oh-so-kindly entered Serenity's navsat beacon into the computer, all I have to do is let the autopilot take me there, and then –" Mullins grinned maliciously "- I use the lasers that the Alliance was so kind as to install on this shuttle, and blow Bartowski to kingdom come."

Sarah looked at Mullins for a moment, and made a snap decision. "When hell freezes over," she growled, and pushed off toward Mullins.

Whether it was because Sarah was still recovering from her head injury or due to simple poor tactics, nobody was quite sure, but Mullins was not expecting an attack from Sarah, and so was completely unprepared for her shoulder to impact his midsection.

Unfortunately, she did not hit him hard enough to dislodge his gun. Even as she got him into a headlock and grabbed at his wrist, he started firing.

"Shit!" Bryce screamed, pulling himself down as close to the deck as he could get. One bullet impacted Captain Mike Tweedum in the left shoulder, another behind Major Rick Lorenz' right ear –

And one bullet plowed directly into the center control panel, causing a shower of sparks to erupt from it. Sarah punched Mullins in the side of the head. Stunned, he let go of the gun, which Sarah grabbed.

Mullins tried desperately to move toward Sarah, but his eyes were barely able to focus. As he watched in horror, the gun came up, aimed directly at his face. The world seemed to freeze as the muzzle of the gun belched fire and smoke.

The bullet spun through the zero-G atmosphere, on a beeline toward Mullins' forehead. He felt the searing pain of the impact –

* * *

**0915 hours, Alliance Mean Time**

**25 December 2520  
St. Lucy's Hospital, Ariel City, Ariel**

– and then he woke up.

Frank Mullins had, over the span of his lifetime, heard many stories of gunshot wound survivors awakening from comas long afterwards, unable to speak, barely able to see, barely able to move. Generally, they could only see fuzzy images in front of their faces, and it would take weeks of rehabilitation – and usually some serious corrective lenses – before they would be able to see properly again.

But that was not the case here. He was instantly able to see, in sharp focus, the overhead light fixture. Figuring he wouldn't be able to move, he tried to sit up nonetheless –

And was rewarded with the ability to sit up in his bed. Stunned, but pleasantly so, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and turned to look in the mirror in his peripheral vision.

What he saw there would've given pause to even the calmest man in the universe.

Of the face that Frank Mullins had seen the last time he shaved, he still had perhaps two-thirds of it. The left side, however, from his forehead down to his cheek bone, was a Phantom-esque mask of titanium. In fact, upon closer inspection, BOTH of his eyes were gone, replaced with what appeared to be telescopic video cameras designed to LOOK like eyes. And when he lifted his hand to his face –

Well, there was a barely perceptible but definitely present blue glow coming from under his skin.

"What… the… hell…" he breathed, and in hearing his voice, realized that it now had a slightly electronic quality to it.

"We rebuilt you, Agent Mullins," he heard from behind him. Spinning around, he found himself staring at a man in the doorway. Tall, well built, unruly mop of brown hair on top of his head. "Made you better. Stronger. Faster."

Mullins frowned. "Who are you?"

"That's unimportant," the man replied. "What's important is that you've finally come out of your coma, and it appears that you're ready to fight, ready to go."

"The hell it's unimportant," Mullins shot back. "You say you made me better, stronger, and faster?"

"That's correct –"

And before the man could react, Mullins had leapt the bed, wrapped his left hand around the man's throat, and slammed him against the wall. "Then what's to keep me from strangling you, right NOW?!"

To his shock and dismay, the man just smiled. "You'll never get your revenge if you do that," he whispered.

Taken aback, Mullins released his grip on the man's throat and stepped back. "Revenge on whom?"

"Sarah Walker," the man replied. "Chuck Bartowski. John Casey. I'd say Bryce Larkin, but, well, he's dead."

"It's the 26th century," Mullins said. "They're ALL dead."

The man's smile grew wider. "You're not thinking fourth dimensionally, Mr. Mullins. Time. It's relative. After all, you got here, didn't you?"

Mullins, despite now being the 26th century's very own six million dollar man, nonetheless found himself growing light-headed. Stepping backward, he found the bed, and sat down, holding his head in his hands. "You had me rebuilt. You can help me travel through time." He looked up at the man again. "You clearly have a grudge against the Intersect idiot trio, if you did all that just so I could have my revenge." He cocked his head to the side. "Are you with Fulcrum?"

"Not exactly," the man replied, his smile morphing into a frighteningly evil grin. "Fulcrum just reported to me."

Mullins' eyes went wide. He had heard stories, but they had never been confirmed before the ill-fated mission to send Chuck Bartowski to the distant future. "The Ring…"

"Bingo," the man said. "I am the Ring, the Ring is me, and we are all together." He held out a hand, which Mullins grasped.

"Agent Mullins," he said, shaking Mullins' hand, "I am the man who can not only get you home, but help you wreak havoc on the people who wrecked your world." He paused. "Admittedly, their world has been thrown into a remarkable amount of disorder lately, but it's always fun to screw with them more.

"Anyway," he continued, returning his attention to Mullins, "my name is Daniel Shaw. I look forward to helping you destroy them and everything they love."

* * *

_with Brandon Routh as Daniel Shaw_


	2. Below My Feet

_**Chuck vs. the Past **_**Redux, Chapter 1 – "Below My Feet"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin  
Mal Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Pirate Leader – Michael Cerveris  
Zoe Washburne – Gina Torres  
Pirate 1 – Peter Woodward  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
Pirate 2 – Eugene Lipinski  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Simon Tam – Sean Maher  
Frank Mullins – Damian Lewis  
Daniel Shaw – Brandon Routh

* * *

**1730 hours, Alliance Mean Time**

**18 March 2521  
**_**Serenity**_

If any of the members of _Serenity_'s crew had known what Mexico was, they likely would've called the scene in the cargo bay a Mexican standoff.

As it was, they were all quite content to call it what Jayne Cobb had begun to growl just before he had been thumped on the head by a rather lethal looking oak truncheon – "What a clusterfu-"

Now, however, he lay quite still on the deck, a lump rising on the back of his head – indeed, the man was snoring. Malcolm Reynolds would have sighed and rolled his eyes, but the truth of the matter was, he was rather busy, a pistol in each hand, each aimed at the heads of two of the three invaders onboard his vessel. The All-Seeing Pirates, they were called. A group of vigilantes who had stolen a great deal of technology from the National Security Agency and then used it to wreak havoc on commercial shipping, they claimed to be a religious order, though as best as Mal could tell, their only vows were to kick ass and chew bubble gum – and they were all out of bubble gum.

That, and shave their heads and wear old-fashioned black suits and ties. What a bunch of weirdos.

"You cannot hope to defeat us," said their leader in the monotone voice that the All-Seeing Pirates used. "We are superior. You will be destroyed if you attempt anything."

The leader, of course, had his own guns – one pointed at Mal, another at Zoe Washburne. Zoe had her guns pointed at Pirate 1 and Pirate 2. Pirate 1 had his guns pointed at Mal and River Tam. Mal had his guns pointed at Leader Pirate and Pirate 2. Pirate 2 had his guns pointed at Zoe and River. River didn't have any guns, but she didn't need them, as was evidenced by the very still Pirate 3, lying on the deck, his neck snapped.

Of course, part of the reason River didn't have any guns on her person was that she was holding a terrified two year old boy, whose mother was cowering behind Mal. Kaylee Frye had never been much of a gun person.

On the other hand, none of this damn Mexican standoff would've been necessary if Jayne hadn't come charging into the scene, Vera locked and cocked, about to blow some All-Seeing Pirate heads off. Needless to say, he had not seen Pirate 3, who had clocked him on the back of the head, just before River had kicked Pirate 3 across the deck and into the bulkhead.

"Destroyed my ass," Mal snapped. "You ain't takin' a damn thing from my vessel. You _observe_ that, you bastard?"

Pirate Leader cocked his head to the side. "You attempt to use our chosen name as an insult. Your attempts will fail. We do not experience emotion."

And that was when little Chuck Frye decided he was going to start crying. _Aw, in the _tyen shiao-duh, Mal groaned in his head. _NOW, Chuck?_

"Silence the child," Pirate Leader instructed River. "His vocalizations are disturbing. If necessary, I will terminate him."

"Oh, the hell you will!" Mal barked, the harshness of his tone just making Chuck cry harder.

Pirate Leader took a step toward River –

And a flurry of motion took everybody off guard. Later on, Mal swore that all he saw was a blur of red and cold steel.

Kaylee dove for the deck, scooped up Vera from next to the prone Jayne, and rolled so that she was upright. Taking aim, she shot down Pirate Leader, Pirate 1, and Pirate 2 – headshots each.

The bald corpses dropped to the deck, blood streaming out onto their suits.

"The HELL was that?!" Mal asked Kaylee, astonished. "You always freeze when you try to handle guns!"

"Ain't nobody ever threatened my little boy before," she growled, tossing Jayne's shotgun to the deck as she stood up and crossed to the pirates. "Motherrutters had to go."

Mal turned and looked at River, who – and this was a first – had a look of astonishment on her own face. Nobody moved as Kaylee reached the Pirate Leader. "You wanna hurt my little boy, you _ee da tuo da bien_?!" she shouted at the corpse. "I will end your _kao_ life!"

"Mommy?"

And it was as if somebody had flipped a switch in Kaylee. She looked down at the pirate, then at her own hands. "Oh God," she breathed. "Oh, God, what have I done?!"

An unearthly wail escaped from Kaylee's mouth as she dropped to her knees, her body wracked by sobs. Chuck wriggled out of River's grasp, and toddled across the deck to his mother, where he wrapped his arms around her. "It okay, Mommy!" he said. "It okay!"

Kaylee wrapped her arms around Chuck and squeezed, continuing to sob. "It okay!" he insisted again. "Mommy stop the bad man!"

"That's right, she certainly did," Zoe interjected. "Your mommy's a _shiong-tsan sha-sho_."

Kaylee sobbed again. "I don't wanna be a killer," she cried. "I just wanna fix engines."

As she spoke, a groan emanated from the lump they called Jayne. "Gorram it," he moaned as he sat up. Then he looked around the cargo bay and took stock of the situation. "What the hell…" he said, disbelief in his voice. "Those idiots threaten Chuck or somethin'?"

"That is, indeed, the short and shorter of it," Mal replied. "Now Kaylee's all worked up about it."

Jayne rolled his eyes. "Aw, _run-tse duh fwotzoo_," he grumbled. "You were protectin' your boy, Kaylee. Ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of."

"I just killed three men," she whispered.

"'Verse's better for it," Jayne shot back. "Now maybe you wanna be takin' the boy outta here, Mal and I'll clean up?"

Mal gave Jayne a curious look. "Who's givin' the orders 'round here?"

"You sure as hell weren't."

* * *

Kaylee sat alone in her quarters, still numb. Inara had agreed to watch Chuck for the time being, while Kaylee tried to recover from having shot three men in cold blood.

She still couldn't believe it. Yes, they had invaded the ship. Yes, they had threatened everybody aboard. Yes, their leader had directly threatened her own son. But still – she wasn't a killer. She just wasn't.

It was at times like this that Kaylee wished Shepherd Book was still alive. These were the types of things she could talk about with him, moral conundra and the like. But he was three years dead now, the victim of the ruthless Operator and his squad of Alliance soldiers.

Now THERE was a cold-blooded killer. That he had killed Shepherd Book and his entire colony, then Mr. Universe, and tried to kill Mal – all for wanting to protect River – it was inexcusable, as far as Kaylee was concerned. But she wasn't like him.

She took a bit of comfort in that realization. He had killed to destroy. She had killed to protect. But it wasn't any easier.

Kaylee sighed, and for not the first time in the previous two years, wished that Chuck's father was still around.

What a ridiculous chain of events that had been. International criminals, having gotten hold of some device that was well beyond the technology of the twenty-sixth century, had dropped one Charles I. "Chuck" Bartowski, denizen of the twenty-first century, squarely into the cargo hold of _Serenity_. While he recuperated from the resulting injuries, he and Kaylee went, as she had put it, bibbledy for one another.

One thing led to another, and then Kaylee's first Valentine's Day had happened, and then, Chuck's people from the twenty-first century had arrived. They took him back home, and just over a week after he left… Kaylee's life had been changed.

* * *

**0830 hours, Alliance Mean Time**

**26 March 2518  
**_**Serenity**_

Kaylee slumped over against the wall of her bathroom, half leaning against it, half lying on the floor. This had to have been the tenth morning in a row she had been sick, and today, it was worse than usual. She had no idea what was causing it, either – she felt fine for (most) of the rest of the day. The food on _Serenity_ hadn't changed, they hadn't made planet-fall since leaving Persephone six days before, and nobody else onboard was sick, so she knew it wasn't some strange bug.

Maybe she had gotten something from Chuck – or from his friends. Kaylee's eyes narrowed. Maybe it was that blonde bitch. Sarah Walker. Kaylee had seen the look in her eyes when she looked at Chuck, and Kaylee knew, she just KNEW, that Walker had come to the twenty-sixth century with the express intent of stealing her MAN –

"Get ahold of yourself, Frye," she muttered, snapping out of her jealous funk. That was another thing. She had been prone to wild mood swings the last several days, going from hating Chuck for leaving to missing him desperately and back again. It was out of control, and quite frankly, she had had it with the ridiculousness her body was putting her through. It was time to go see Simon and have him give her whatever pills she needed to take to put things right again.

Composing herself, Kaylee stood up in front of the sink, and – first things first – brushed her teeth, because going to the infirmary with vomit breath? Ew. Just ew.

A moment later, she emerged from her quarters and marched down the passageway to the infirmary. "Good morning, Simon!" she said, the note of cheerfulness in her voice patently false, even to her. And of course, Simon, having known her as long and as well (and once, some time ago, as Biblically) as he had, picked up on the fake cheer.

"Perhaps," he said uncertainly. "What can I do for you, Kaylee?"

She sighed. "I feel rotten. Every morning, I feel rotten. I've been sick every morning for the past week and a half, but then I feel just right for the rest of the day – you know, 'side from my occasional bouts of murderous rage toward Sarah Walker for taking Chuck away."

Simon took a moment to process what Kaylee was telling him. "Let me run that back by you," he said slowly. "You've been sick every morning for the last ten days, and you've been experiencing mood swings?"

"That's about the long'n'short of it, Simon," she replied. "What's wrong with me?"

"Kaylee…" Simon really was at a loss for how to phrase the next question. Sure, he had been a doctor for several years now, but he had never had a patient in this sort of situation whom he had considered a friend, much less one he had had sex with – _THAT would've been a malpractice lawsuit waiting to happen_, a voice in the back of his head chided him. "Kaylee," he began again, "when Chuck was here… were the two of you… intimate?"

Kaylee cocked an eyebrow. "D'you mean did we have sex?"

"Yes, that's essentially –"

"Did we get it on? Did we rock _Serenity_? Did we do the horizontal hokey-pokey, the hibbity-dibbity, the beast of two backs?" she continued, sarcastically. "Why, yes we did, Simon, and let me tell you something, it was FANTASTIC."

Simon frowned. "A simple yes would've sufficed."

That was when Kaylee seemed to realize what she was saying, and blushed to the roots of her hair. "Oh, God, Simon, I'm so sorry," she muttered. "See what I mean? I just go off."

"Kaylee, not to be indelicate," he replied, "and on this, again, a simple yes or no will suffice… did you and Chuck use any sort of prophylactic?"

"Uh…" She paused. "A prophywhat?"

Simon sighed and looked at the ceiling. "A condom."

Kaylee made a face. "Um, I don't believe we did," she replied, her blush turning an even deeper shade of red. "Matter of fact, I'm pretty certain we did not."

And that was when her brain put two and two together and came up with "zygote". "OH GOD," she gasped. "Oh, Simon, you don't think that –"

"Yeah," he interrupted. "I'm pretty sure that –"

"I'M GONNA HAVE A BABY?!"

And that was when Mal Reynolds, Captain of Inopportune Timing, chose to stick his head in the door of the infirmary. "Say what?!"

* * *

**2521**

And so, little Chuck had come along in November of that year. Three months later, Kaylee had gotten a Valentine's Day missive from Chuck Bartowski that had sat in the NSA archives for five centuries, and it had made her ache for him – to feel his arms around her, to feel his kiss, to feel his –

She grinned and blushed at the thought of feeling THAT part of Chuck again. It HAD been quite nice, although looking back, it would've been a whole heck of a lot smarter if she had felt it while using, as Simon had so delicately put it, some sort of prophylactic.

There hadn't been anybody else since then, either. Admittedly, it was a little difficult to find somebody when you spent your days wandering the endless skies, and since the options were Simon, who, been there, done that, and he didn't seem to care anymore; Jayne, who, just no, no no no no no NO; and Mal, who she was pretty sure was quite nicely put together but who she would never be able to look in the eye again if she went there…

Well, it just sucked.

* * *

The pirate ship drifted in space behind _Serenity_. It had never docked – the All-Seeing Pirates could transit space by teleport.

But they also hadn't known about their stowaways, and now that the pirates were gone, the stowaways thought it safe to come out.

"The scanner shows that the last of the pirates died over an hour ago," Shaw explained to Mullins as they climbed out of the storage hold. "We've got the ship to ourselves."

"And you've got the device?" Mullins asked Shaw. "Because, y'know, this plan is gonna go nowhere quite quickly if that thing doesn't work."

Shaw rolled his eyes and sighed. "It will work," he said. "The device was worked on by Orion for a solid year after it was returned to the United States. He perfected it. He built in calibration devices that allow us to pick when and where we go."

"Orion, huh?" Mullins replied. "I've heard of him. Thought he was just a legend."

"Oh, no," Shaw chuckled. "No, Orion was very real. In fact, I killed him." His smile grew broader, and if possible, even more evil. "In fact, it's really quite a poetic irony that he was the one to make this work so well."

_This enigmatic nature of his is gonna get old REAL quick_, Mullins sighed inwardly. "Do tell."

"Oh, Orion was Chuck Bartowski's father," Shaw answered. "His own work will destroy his son's life."

Mullins nodded approvingly. "Perhaps I misjudged you, Shaw," he said. "Maybe you're just the kind of total bastard I need."

Shaw grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment."

* * *

_tyen shiao-duh_ - "name of all that's sacred"  
_ee da tuo da bien_ - "pile of shit"  
_kao_ - "goddamn"  
_shiong-tsan sha-sho__ - _"ass-kicking killer"  
_run-tse duh fwotzoo__ - _"merciful Buddha"


	3. White Blank Page

_**Chuck vs. the Past **_**Redux, Chapter 2 – "White Blank Page"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
John Casey – Adam Baldwin  
Morgan Grimes – Joshua Gomez  
Alex McHugh – Mekenna Melvin  
Sarah Walker – Yvonne Strahovski  
Ellie Bartowski – Sarah Lancaster  
Diane Beckman – Bonita Friedericy  
Daniel Shaw – Brandon Routh

* * *

**0800 Hours, Pacific Daylight Time**

**26 May 2014  
Burbank, California**

It was an idyllic spring morning in Burbank. Sprinklers "tick-tick-tick"ed across their lawns. A Prius drove slowly down the street, pausing to allow the driver to throw the L.A. _Times_ out the window as he went. A dog barked a few houses away, as his owner threw a Frisbee across the back yard for him to catch. Throughout the neighborhood, grills were being prepared for Memorial Day barbeques.

And of course, no morning would be complete without the requisite police chase, which was passing nearby, about half a mile away on Olive Avenue, as evidenced by the wailing sirens and the low-flying helicopter overhead.

In the midst of it all, one man stood on his porch, folded American flag in hand, basking in the morning sunshine. Memorial Day was one of the few days he allowed himself to take off of work. Cyberspace would be safe enough without Chuck Bartowski for one day.

As he crossed the lawn to the thirty foot flagpole by the curb, he thought about the fight he had had to go through to put it up. The neighborhood association had pitched an almighty fit – until a very grumpy Marine Corps officer had shown up at one of their meetings, grunted, and showed them a Presidential Commendation for one Charles I. Bartowski for his service to the United States of America. After that, the objections to the flagpole had mysteriously vanished.

It had been well over a year now since the last time Chuck had seen John Casey, at Morgan and Alex's wedding just after Easter of 2013. Chuck had never seen Casey happier than he was that afternoon, not even when he was cleaning his guns. The pride in his eyes as he had watched his daughter get married – well, that was something Chuck hoped he himself would someday get to experience.

And the likelihood of that was greater and greater with each passing day. As Chuck began hoisting the flag up the pole, he thought about the progress Sarah had made in the last two years. It was slow and torturous at times, but she had regained about half of her memories of the time she had known him. Better than that, though, was the fact that she had fallen in love with him all over again, independent of her memories returning. Of course, Morgan had been quite quick to remind Chuck of his "true love's kiss" theory, which Chuck had dismissed as total hogwash.

Of course, then ABC had to come along with their _Once Upon a Time_ business, and that had turned Morgan's inner romantic into a raging teenage 'shipper. "TRUE LOVE'S KISS WAS CHARAH'S SURVIVAL!" he had once proclaimed to the world, after consuming a solid six pack of Firestone Walker Union Jack.

Chuck had tried to get Morgan to calm down, but a six pack of 7.5% IPA was enough to turn Morgan into something more irrational than a preteen girl at a Robert Pattinson autograph session. And so, Chuck had instead played along with the idea of true love's kiss having saved him and Sarah.

And she wasn't so quick to dismiss the idea, either. "My memories started coming back that day on the beach," she reminded him. "That could well have been the psychological trigger that fatally cracked the dam. Your sister even thinks there's some merit to the idea – not that it's fairy-tale magic, or anything, but that it's legitimately scientifically possible."

Chuck shook his head as he began to bring the flag back down to half-mast. His best friend and his wife were both incurable romantics. Not that there was anything wrong with that, of course.

However, as of late, Sarah had begun to recover some rather problematic memories, and they were returning to her in a particularly strong and painful way. She had woken up in the middle of the night one night, screaming at Chuck. "HOW DARE YOU!" she had sobbed, striking out at him and making him roll out of bed to keep from getting hit. "HOW COULD YOU!"

Once she had calmed down, she explained that she had had a very vivid dream of shooting a man onboard a space shuttle – and that had brought roiling back the entirety of her memories of that mission, five years ago, when Chuck had been sent flying forward through time by Fulcrum. Sarah, Casey, and Bryce had given chase, onboard a heavily modified space shuttle _Enterprise_. Sarah suffered severe injuries during the mission, and while she was still in a very fragile condition, had discovered that Chuck had fallen in love with Kaylee Frye. In the end, Chuck had returned to the twenty-first century, but that had left issues between the two of them that took some time to resolve.

Chuck hadn't been quite sure as to why those memories came back so vividly for Sarah, when others took so much time and effort, and often came back only as ghosts that had to be amplified by other people. General Beckman didn't know, and nobody was left alive who had worked on the Intersect project. At a loss, Chuck had turned to his sister, the neurologist.

* * *

"Here's the thing, Ellie," Chuck said, unable to meet his sister's eyes. "I know you know all about my involvement with the CIA, Sarah's involvement with the CIA, what Quinn did to her, and so on. But this mission… I've never told you about before."

Ellie frowned. "I thought you said you had told me everything."

"I did say that," Chuck admitted. "But this mission was so top secret that it went beyond top secret. Like super top secret. Super double probation secret, if you will."

"Okay," Ellie replied, nonplussed. "This had better be good."

Chuck frowned. "Well… I time-traveled."

Ellie looked at him for a moment, disbelief written on her face. Finally, she said, "I suppose next you'll be selling me the Vincent Thomas Bridge."

"No, seriously, sis!" he said. "Fulcrum got their hands on some bizarre device, and sent me five hundred years into the future. Long story short, Sarah and Casey followed me on a modified space shuttle, and they found me, except I had sort of fallen for this girl onboard the spaceship that I landed on –"

"Sort of fallen for?" Ellie interrupted, a sarcastic tone to her voice. "Expand on that, if you would."

Chuck looked at the ceiling. "We sort of had sex…"

"And Sarah found out?"

"Yeeeeah," Chuck said slowly. "And not only did she find out, but she found out while she was recuperating from a traumatic brain injury."

"Oh, GOOD, Chuck, WELL DONE," Ellie replied, slow-clapping. "And you WONDER why this memory came back so vividly."

Chuck raised an eyebrow. "You're the neurologist, Ellie, not me. That's why I came to you."

Ellie sighed. "Look, any time somebody experiences a TBI, there's going to be some amount of scarring when the brain heals itself. As a result, that part of her brain was fundamentally changed. While it was changing, she experienced a severe emotional trauma, thanks to you. Quinn wouldn't have known about that, and so when he suppressed her memories, those wouldn't have been buried as deeply. As a result, they came back more vividly, and you're a dick."

"El, it was five years ago," Chuck protested. "I had just watched Sarah execute a Fulcrum agent in the Buy More parking lot. I was confused."

"You were a jerk," Ellie shot back. "But, I guess you weren't totally out of line," she added grudgingly.

* * *

His flag now hung at half-mast, Chuck returned to the house, shutting the front door behind him. Picking up his cup of coffee from the credenza inside the door, he made his way to his office and brought his laptop online.

There would be no Carmichael Industries work today. Just Facebook and e-mail. Well, maybe a little Carmichael Industries work. You know, five minutes. Or ten. Maybe fifteen.

As Chuck was rationalizing doing work on his day off, a window popped upon his screen, demanding his attention. "INCOMING VIDEO CALL," the screen announced. "NUMBER BLOCKED."

Well, there was only one person that would be – but why on earth was she calling? Chuck hadn't talked to her in nearly two years. No reason to – he didn't do any national security contracts.

It had to be important, whatever it was. So, steeling himself for whatever was about to rain down on him from Washington, Chuck clicked on the "Accept" button.

Major General Diane Beckman (USAF) appeared on his screen. "_You know, I remember when I didn't have to wait for your approval to connect to your screen,_" she said with no preamble, a touch of annoyance in her voice.

"Yes, well, I am a private citizen who doesn't work for the United States government these days," Chuck replied. "Hello, General, and how are YOU doing? Happy Memorial Day."

Beckman gave Chuck one of her many annoyed glares – so many of them did she have, in fact, that at one time, Chuck had considered enumerating them just as he had Casey's grunts, but decided that he was far more likely to die if he referred to "Beckman Glare Number 17 – 'the Intersect is giving me acid reflux'." And so he had let it go.

"_This is not a social call, Bartowski_," she snapped. "_I'm calling because we've lost Shaw._"

Chuck just about hit the roof. "YOU LOST SHAW?!" he bellowed. "How the HELL could you have lost Shaw?! I thought he was locked up in a hole deeper than the one Bane threw Bruce Wayne in!"

Beckman looked at Chuck, puzzled. "Oh, come on," he said, momentarily distracted. "Are you telling me you didn't see _The Dark Knight Rises_?"

Beckman sighed and shook her head. "_Yes, he was in maximum security detention. But we lost him, nonetheless._"

"How long?" Chuck asked, his internal disbelief continuing to battle between the fact that Daniel Shaw was on the loose and the fact that Beckman hadn't seen _The Dark Knight Rises_.

"_Well…_" Beckman hesitated. "_We lost him last night… but… he escaped about a year and a half ago._"

Chuck's eyes went wide. Inside his head, nuclear bombs began to explode. The four horsemen of the apocalypse rode forth behind his eyes. Visions of commandeering an Ohio-class submarine filled his mind. General Beckman stood before Jonathan Crane, condemned to cross the icy Gotham River.

Ah, the icy Gotham River. It began to overflow its banks, calming the nuclear reactions taking place in Chuck's head. After a moment, he was finally calm enough to speak. "How… the hell… has Shaw been on the loose for a year and a half?"

"_He got out during the whole kerfluffle with General Petraeus resigning_," Beckman explained. "_We did a cost benefit analysis of the whole thing, and we realized that if we tried to bring him back in, we would probably lose a lot of good agents, whereas if we just kept an eye on him, we could make sure he didn't get up to any trouble – and if necessary, we could just kill him._"

"So… you lost track of him, then?"

Beckman nodded slowly. "_I'm afraid so,_" she said. "_And Chuck… the way he disappeared… it's bad._"

_Chuck_. Beckman had called him by his given name. She only ever did that if things were really and truly FUBAR.

"Do I even want to know?" he asked quietly.

Beckman didn't say anything. Instead, she just pressed a button. Her face disappeared, replaced by a surveillance video.

Daniel Shaw, exiting the car rental facility at Dallas Ft. Worth International Airport. A silver briefcase in hand. The car exited the parking lot.

Now the toll pavilion. Shaw's rented Chevy Cruze appears on the right hand side of the screen, accelerating toward the toll pavilion, like the video where the drunk driver hit the barriers and went airborne – except that, instead of doing the same, the Cruze pulsated with light for a moment, and then disappeared in a silver flash.

"Fuck… me…" It took Chuck a moment to realize that those words had escaped his mouth. Beckman's face returned to the screen.

"Clearly you know exactly what he did," she said, a note of resignation to her voice.

Chuck glared at her, a grim look on his face. "Yes, I very much do," he replied, a steely note entering his voice. "And it should have been damned impossible, because I was pretty certain that the only two of those devices in existence – the one that was on _Enterprise_ and the one that Fulcrum used on me – had been dismantled. Destroyed. GONE."

Beckman looked down at her desk, not meeting Chuck's eyes. "That was true of the one from _Enterprise_," she replied. "But the one that was in Larkin's car… well… we turned it over to a research scientist to work on it. Perfect it."

"You've got to be kidding me," Chuck sighed, shaking his head. "Who was it? What unlucky son of a bitch got in Shaw's way this time?"

"Orion."

Chuck's head snapped up. "Goddammit, General," he whispered, not trusting his own voice. "I have just about had it with my family getting dragged through the NSA's mud."

"I know," she replied. "I know. And I'm sorry. But we knew your father was good. And he WAS good. He DID perfect the device."

"Which means Shaw could go anywhere he wanted, at any time."

"Yes…"

"And he would, of course, have had full access to the case files."

Chuck stared at General Beckman. "Here's what I'm going to do," he said, his voice cold as ice. "I'm going to record a warning message to the crew of _Serenity_. I'm going to tell them that a rat bastard who, quite frankly, the United States government should have executed long ago, is coming after them. I'm going to tell them to take whatever precautionary measures they need to. And then, you are going to store it in the NSA's archives, for delivery five hundred years from now." He paused. "Well, plus a few. The last thing I want to do is create a temporal paradox," he finished, his words dripping with sarcasm, even as his mind screamed with disbelief that he was actually speaking them.

General Beckman nodded. "Of course."

* * *

Chuck recorded his message, and sent it to General Beckman. Then, he tried to put it out of his mind. Surely the crew of _Serenity_ would be able to defend themselves against Daniel Shaw. Mal Reynolds was a good tactical thinker, and he had people like Jayne Cobb and River Tam to backstop him. Hell, Chuck had heard the story about how _Serenity_ took down an entire Alliance fleet and half of the Reavers at the same time. If they could do that, surely they could handle one rogue CIA agent who was five hundred years out of his time.

He didn't tell Sarah about it, either. If there were two things he did not, under any circumstances, want to mention to her, they were 1) anything about _Serenity_, and 2) anything about Daniel Shaw. She had just gotten over the trauma of her memories of the _Serenity_ mission returning when memories of Shaw began to leak back through. The less either came up, the better.

And so, that evening, bratwurst and beer in hand, he and Sarah sat on their front lawn, enjoying the Memorial Day fireworks from Griffith Park. She had made it clear that there would be even better fireworks later on – in private – and Chuck was DEFINITELY looking forward to that. In fact, so much was he looking forward to his and Sarah's personal Memorial Day celebration that he had temporarily forgotten about Shaw and the threat he posed to _Serenity_.

Then, an enormous boom shattered the night. "What was that?" Sarah asked, confused. No fireworks had exploded to coincide with the boom. Then there was another, and another.

And then, the piercing noise of a spacecraft entering the atmosphere shrieked into existence. Chuck and Sarah looked upward to see a glowing orb streak across the night sky, a tail of flame and smoke trailing behind it.

"Oh my God," Sarah gasped. "That's a plane… it's going to crash!" Digging her cell phone out of her pocket, she quickly dialed 911. "Yes, hi, my name's Sarah Bartowski," she told the operator. "I'm calling from Burbank… there's a plane that just flew overhead, it came out of supersonic speed, and I think it's on fire. It's heading west – I'm almost certain it's going to crash."

But even as Sarah spoke to the emergency services operator, a grim certainty entered Chuck's mind. Despite the distance, despite the glow somewhat obfuscating its silhouette, the shape of the spacecraft had been unmistakable. A chunky body. Two stubby wings, each with an engine nacelle. The very shape of a Firefly-class freighter.

Shaw had already gotten to _Serenity_. Chuck had been too late.


	4. Ghosts That We Knew

_**Chuck vs. the Past **_**Redux, Chapter 3 – "Ghosts That We Knew"**

**CAST (in order of appearance):**  
River Tam – Summer Glau  
The General – Bonita Friedericy  
Alliance pilot – Theo Rossi  
Malcolm Reynolds – Nathan Fillion  
Chuck Bartowski – Zachary Levi  
Daniel Shaw – Brandon Routh  
Frank Mullins – Damian Lewis  
Kaylee Frye – Jewel Staite  
Jayne Cobb – Adam Baldwin

* * *

**0100 hours, Alliance Mean Time**

**19 March 2521  
**_**Serenity**_

Something was wrong, and River Tam could sense it.

She wasn't quite sure what. It was less of a surety and more of a nagging suspicion, but something was definitely wrong, and it was nibbling on the edges of her consciousness. Somebody was out there who wasn't supposed to be.

The problem was, River didn't know who, or where. She couldn't find anything on sensors, and until she could, she didn't think she should go to Captain Reynolds. Yes, he had learned to trust her hunches, but this one – well, she wasn't even sure there was anything to it.

And so, she just kept piloting _Serenity_ along through the deep black of space, bound for the new resort world of Xanadu to drop off their cargo of fine silk robes acquired on Sihnon. It was that same cargo that the pirates had been after the day before, although River couldn't for the life of her determine why. It wasn't as if the robes were very practical – all the women's robes barely came down below the buttocks and were virtually see-through, for goodness's sake.

* * *

**USS **_**Challenger**_

The Alliance corvette screamed through space at a speed that very nearly approached what would have, five centuries earlier, been referred to in science fiction lexicon as warp speed. The technology was antique and massively inefficient, but the speed it could put out was well beyond anything the Alliance used these days. Admittedly, the kind of speed that _Challenger_ could achieve would rip some of the massive "skyscraper" ships in the Alliance fleet to shreds.

Alliance scientists had also expressed concerns about the speeds at which _Challenger_ traveled. She traveled on the very threshold of light speed, and while she never actually broke through, the fact that she flew on the raggedy edge of warp bent space and time around her. The Alliance's astronomical scientists believed that that bending could very well have a deleterious effect on the stars, moons, and planets which _Challenger_ flew by, and so, her engines were very rarely throttled up to full. But this was a goddamn emergency.

"Are we in range yet?" barked the red-haired android sitting in _Challenger_'s command chair.

"No, ma'am," replied the nervous Alliance pilot. "We're still too far away. It'll be at least another fifteen minutes."

The General leaned forward. "Fly faster then."

The pilot turned toward the General. It took one of three things to stand up to the director of the NSA – 1) brass balls, 2) insanity, or 3) a scientific certainty of death should he refuse to do so. Fortunately, option 3 was available to the young man just then. "Ma'am, if we fly any faster, _Challenger_ may well fly apart."

The General's electronic eyes opened wide and filled with a cold fury. Her orders hearkened back across centuries, bringing to life the words of a fictional Starfleet captain. "FLY HER APART THEN!"

An observer outside of _Challenger_ would've seen her hull blur as she reached 185,000 miles per second – just barely shy of light speed. Space and light twisted around her, the very fabric of reality threatening to tear as the corvette barreled through the black. But this was no time for caution. The General had all manner of sins for which to atone, and she was damned if the laws of physics were going to keep that from happening.

* * *

_**Serenity**_

*beep beep beep beep*

The beeping sound of an incoming comm message caught River's attention, turning her from the windshield. The rarity of incoming messages was such that it actually caught her off guard for a moment, before she recovered and moved toward the comm panel.

"This is freighter _Serenity_," she intoned into the microphone. "Who is this?"

"_tsshchshcshs-_renity_, this-sthschths-USS _Challenger_. We ha-sthcshsthsch-message from NSA-chsthcshschsths-_"

"_Challenger_, this is _Serenity_," River replied. "Your signal is extremely weak and barely readable. Please say again."

"Serenity_, this is USS _Challenger," she heard again, the signal coming in much more clearly this time. "_We have a Priority One message for your commander from the National Security Agency._"

As always, the words "National Security Agency" sent a tremor of fear through River Tam. The experiments they had conducted on her in the name of "science" would never heal completely. But time did – time and the knowledge that there were people employed by the same agency who were not entirely horrible individuals. John Casey came to mind.

"_Challenger_, this is _Serenity_," she replied. "Acknowledged. Please stand by."

Turning back toward her station, she pressed the intercom button for Mal's room. A sharp buzz sounded, and a moment later, his sleepy face swam into view on her screen. "_Whassit?_"

"Captain, we have been hailed by an Alliance ship. They have a Priority One message for you from the National Security Agency."

* * *

Mal Reynolds sat straight up in bed, sleep instantly banished. A Priority One message from the NSA? For HIM?! What the hell?

"Put 'em through," he ordered River, trying to come fully awake as he watched the screen.

"_Captain Reynolds, this is Alliance corvette USS _Challenger," he heard a moment later. "_Do you read?_"

"I copy," Mal replied. "What's this about a Priority One message?"

"_We are transmitting to you immediately._"

"Wai-" But it was to no avail. The Alliance ship had cut off the audio channel, and had already begun sending the video to Mal's computer. A moment later, the "buffering" bar reached 100%, and the video began –

And the face that appeared on Mal's screen made him feel like he was looking at a ghost. It was Chuck Bartowski. He was a few years older than the last time Mal had seen him. Gray hair at his temples, glasses. But definitely Chuck.

"_Mal, this is Chuck Bartowski,_" he started. "_I wish I could say that this is a social call, but I'm afraid it's anything but._" He paused and sighed. "_A very dangerous rogue agent of the CIA, a man by the name of Daniel Shaw, has escaped from his detention facility in the twenty-first century. He managed to get his hands on the same technology that was used to transport me and _Enterprise_ to your time. Unfortunately, that technology has been perfected to allow him to go wherever and whenever he wants._"

Chuck paused again, clearly looking for the right words to explain the situation. "_Mal, this man is clinically insane, and carries a pathological vendetta against me. He will stop at nothing to hurt me and those who I love… and I'm afraid that he would have, before going rogue, had access to the mission files from my trip to your time._"

His attention not wavering from the video screen, Mal reached out and hit the button for the audio intercom. "River, I need you to wake the entire crew up and assemble them in the common room RIGHT NOW."

"_Yes, Capt-_"

He hit the button, cutting her back off as Chuck started speaking again. "_Mal, I can't emphasize enough how dangerous Agent Shaw is._" A picture of a smiling, brown-haired man appeared on Mal's screen. "_This is what he looks like. If you see him, shoot first, then ask questions. Your best bet of safely dealing with him is if he's dead._" Chuck's face reappeared. "_I'm so sorry to have to put you through this, Mal. I know you and your crew have already dealt with a lot. Good luck._"

Chuck's face disappeared, to be replaced by the electronic face of an android who Mal had met once before. "General," he said.

"_Captain Reynolds_," the General replied. "_I must personally take some responsibility for this. I was the one who refused to put a kill order on Shaw. I was the one who asked our scientists to work on the device instead of destroying it._"

Mal gritted his teeth. "Well…" He stopped. "You were alive back then. You know what happens. Don't you?"

The General slowly shook her head. "_I truly don't, Captain_," she replied. "_Whatever Shaw has planned, he hasn't set it in motion yet. Until events begin, they won't actually be part of my time line._"

"_Actually, General BECKMAN, I have indeed set things in motion!_" A new voice broke in to the conversation. "_Sweet Jesus, how are you not dead?_"

"_Shaw, stand down!_" the General barked over the open channel. "_I will blow your ship out of the sky!_"

"_You're still out of range, General!_" Shaw's voice came back, dripping mockery. "_And I'm about to dock with _Serenity."

"Oh, like hell you are," Mal shot back. Reaching out, he punched the intercom again. "River, take evasive action, right now!"

The little Firefly immediately dipped downward and came about, a _THUNK_ resounding through the hull as something struck the ship but failed to catch hold. "General, any assistance you can render would be highly appreciated!" Mal shouted at the open comm link, before dashing up the ladder out of his quarters, bound for the bridge.

* * *

"Dammit," Daniel Shaw cursed, as _Serenity_ dropped away from the pirate ship. The element of surprise blown, the docking tube bounced off _Serenity_'s hull and jolted the pirate ship up and away. "Mullins, does this thing have weapons?"

"Laser cutters," Mullins replied. "Looks like if we put full engine power through 'em, that'd be enough to wreak some serious havoc."

"Do it," Shaw instantly said. "Take out their damn engines."

Mullins punched a few buttons on the console. "Done," he replied.

"FIRE!"

* * *

The laser blast hit _Serenity_ like a fist. Pure amplified energy punched into her engine exhaust. That sparked an explosion, which in turn triggered a catastrophic waterfall of reactions back up the line. Exhaust exploded, and then fuel, and then the energy sought an outlet.

With no way to escape out the now collapsed exhaust nozzles on the tail of the Firefly, the energy went the other way – back toward the engines. Kaylee Frye, having realized that all hell was about to break loose, had already begun running – but as she reached the hatch out of the engine compartment, the force of the explosion reached her, tossing her out and across the cargo bay. Her body twisted through the air, her left foot striking the bulkhead as she descended.

There was an audible _snap_, and pain seared through Kaylee's leg – though it didn't even register at first, as pain surged through her soul, the pain of a mortal blow to _Serenity_ registering. Pulling herself up to her feet, she tried to cross the bay back toward the now blazing engine compartment – only to find that her left leg wasn't working properly.

That was when an ominous _THUMP_ sounded through _Serenity_'s cargo bay. It was a sound Kaylee knew well – a ship had engaged a docking tube on _Serenity_'s cargo entrance.

* * *

"_SHAW, DISENGAGE THAT DOCKING TUBE RIGHT NOW, OR I WILL BLOW YOU TO KINGDOM COME!_"

"Still not in range, General!" Shaw replied cheerfully. Cutting off the comm link, he turned to Mullins. "If she gets too close, keep her occupied."

"You got it," Mullins replied.

Shaw opened the hatch into the docking tube and walked through to _Serenity_'s cargo hatch. Placing a lock-pick device on the control pad next to the hatch, he let it do its thing – and a moment later, a hiss of air announced that the hatch was opening. As it reached about halfway open, Shaw ducked under, into the airlock. Through the window in the second door, he could see a young red-headed woman and a large, rather thuggish looking man desperately fighting a fire. _Ah, the redhead is Kaylee Frye_, Shaw thought to himself, _and the Neanderthal bears a striking resemblance to John Casey, which must make him Jayne Cobb_.

Placing the lock-pick on the airlock control panel, he waited a moment further, and then the door slid open. "Good morning!" he called cheerfully. Both Jayne and Kaylee's gazes swung toward him. Instantly, Jayne reached for his sidearm –

But Shaw was quicker. His gun hand came up, and he fired. The bullet caught Jayne in the center of his chest, and he tumbled backward. He crashed to the deck and lay very still.

"JAYNE!" Kaylee screamed. The fire extinguisher in her hands crashed to the deck, and she tried to limp over to the fallen mercenary. Her leg, however, was not cooperating.

"Get away from him," Shaw ordered her, the gun now aimed at her.

Kaylee, her shaking hands rising into the air, complied. "Now come over here."

"Uh… I can't… I can't really walk," she said quietly, her voice trembling. "I think I broke something when the engines blew."

Shaw rolled his eyes. "Jesus," he sighed. "How on earth did Bartowski fall for a fragile candy-ass like you? No wonder he went running back to Walker at the first available chance."

And at that moment, Kaylee Frye's world seemed to simply fall apart. It didn't help that she was already injured, that the ship she loved was dying around her, but Shaw's words dug into her heart and nearly ripped it in two. She fell to her knees, feeling like a crushing weight was pushing in on her lungs. It felt like her entire world was collapsing.

"Oh, I do NOT have the time for this," Shaw growled. Crossing the deck to the catatonic engineer, he scooped her up and unceremoniously tossed her over his shoulder. He turned and marched back toward his own ship, closing _Serenity_'s cargo hatch behind him and smashing the locking mechanism, to keep her crew from reopening it at any time in the near future.

As he was re-entering his own ship, however, he felt a jolt. Not a jolt of weapons fire, however – this was a jerk upwards, as though something had grabbed the ship –

"_Stand DOWN, Shaw!_" The General's voice came unbidden over the pirate ship's comm system. "_We have you in a tractor beam and will not hesitate to blow you out of the sky._"

Dumping Kaylee on the deck, Shaw punched the comm button. "You won't blow me out of anything, General," he snapped at her. "I've got Kaywinnit Lee Frye on board my vessel, and I know damn well you're not going to voluntarily kill her."

"_Maybe not, but we can certainly make your life hell!_" came the voice of Malcolm Reynolds, breaking into his comms. "_You shoot one of my crew members and abduct another? I've still got thrusters, pal, and you're STILL attached to my ship!_"

And without warning, _Serenity_ jerked upwards, pulling the pirate ship with it. The ship was still held in _Challenger_'s tractor beam, and ominous creaking sounds began to echo through the ship.

"To hell with you both," Shaw muttered. Leaving Kaylee lying in the corridor, he marched to the ship's control room. "Bring the device on line," he said to Mullins.

"Copy that," Mullins said, turning to the silver briefcase next to him. Opening the case, he flipped a switch, then pushed several buttons. Stephen Bartowski, with his flair for sci-fi touches, had, after adding date calibration capacity to the device, installed a date screen much like the one from the DeLorean time machine in _Back to the Future_.

LAST DATE LEFT: 25 MAY 2014  
CURRENT DATE: 19 MAR 2521  
DESTINATION: 26 MAY 2014

"Go," Shaw said.

Mullins pushed the red "EXECUTE" button, and the device began to glow.

* * *

**USS **_**Challenger**_

The pirate ship, sitting directly in front of _Challenger_ began to glow. "Oh, Jesus Christ," the General breathed. "Disengage!" she ordered her pilot. "Disengage, disengage!"

Punching the comm, she hailed _Serenity_. "Captain Reynolds, you have got to disconnect from that ship, right now!"

But it was too late. The silver glow enveloped the pirate ship, then crawled along the tractor beam up to _Challenger_, along the docking tube to _Serenity_. It enveloped both ships, and then –

They all blinked out of existence.

* * *

_**Serenity**_

When Mal came to, he immediately became very aware of the rather large blue and green mass sliding by outside of his windshield. "What the hell…"

"Sir, Shaw's ship has disengaged and disappeared," Zoe Washburn reported as she entered the ship's cockpit. "I think _Challenger_ is still out the- dear God, is that Earth-that-was?!"

"I think it's more along the lines of Earth-that-is," Mal replied, his voice full of disbelief. "Don't ask me how, but we're in orbit around Earth."

"Barely in orbit," River corrected him. "We have no engine power, and our orbit is degrading. We will enter the atmosphere in approximately twenty minutes."

"_Gao yang jong duh goo yang_," Mal swore. "Hail _Challenger_," he said. "See if they can get us out of here."

"_Challenger_, this is _Serenity,_" River said into the comm. "Do you copy?"

Mal turned to Zoe. "We've got serious problems," he said to her. "I'm pretty sure this Shaw character was on a mission of vengeance against Chuck Bartowski. Kidnapping Kaylee's sure a quick way to go ab-"

His voice choked off in mid-sentence. "_Chuck_," he uttered, taking off at a dead run out of the control room.

Zoe caught up to Mal as he reached Kaylee's quarters. Sliding down the ladder, he slammed his entire body weight into the door, breaking it open. "CHUCK!" he bellowed.

A tousled mop of curly red hair appeared from behind Kaylee's closet door. "Capa Mal?"

Mal scooped up the toddler. "Thank God," he breathed. As bad as Kaylee being abducted was, it would've been an unearthly nightmare had Shaw gone after Bartowki's son –

But neither Bartowski nor Shaw could possibly know about little Chuck. And thank the gods for that.

"_Captain Reynolds_," the voice of the General came through the P.A. "_Your pilot has informed me of your situation. We will be docking with your upper emergency hatch. Prepare to evacuate_."

Mal turned and handed Chuck to Zoe. "I'm gonna go help Simon with Jayne," he informed her. "Get the rest of the crew up to _Challenger_. I'll be there in a moment."

Climbing back up out of Kaylee's quarters, Mal jogged down to the infirmary. "How's Jayne?" he asked as he came through the door.

"Awake," came the grunt from Jayne, much to Mal's surprise.

"And stubborn as an ox," Simon added. "He's damn lucky the bullet struck his sternum. The bone shattered, but the bullet didn't penetrate any farther than that."

Mal grimaced. "Can he move?"

"Yes."

"He shouldn't, though," Simon interjected.

"Well, we don't have much of a choice in the matter," Mal said. "_Serenity_'s about to crash. We're evacuatin'."

"Hell," Simon sighed. Grabbing a tote bag from a shelf, he turned to the cabinet that held most of the ship's medications. Opening the door, he swept as many of them as he could into the bag. "Alright, let's go," he said, helping Jayne to a standing position.

Mal got under Jayne's other arm, opposite Simon, and the two of them helped the large man out the door and down the corridor. _Serenity_ was now rattling ominously, and as they reached the emergency hatch, she had begun to make shrieking noises of protest.

Simon went up the hatch into _Challenger_ first. Reaching down, he grabbed Jayne's arms. Mal helped boost Jayne up into the ship, and once he was clear, pulled himself up into the Alliance corvette. Closing the hatch into _Serenity_, he climbed out of the airlock, and closed it as well. "All clear," he informed the young Alliance officer standing there next to the airlock.

Nodding, the officer punched a few buttons. There was a jolt as _Challenger _cut loose from _Serenity_. Mal watched through the window next to the airlock as _Serenity_ began to fall into Earth's atmosphere. Then _Challenger_ pulled away, and Mal's ship was lost to view.

Wiping away the tears that had begun to gather in his eyes, Mal turned to what was left of his crew, gathered silently in the cargo bay behind him. "Let's find this son of a bitch Shaw," he said quietly, his voice threatening to crack. "And let's get Kaylee back."

* * *

Had anybody been onboard _Serenity_, they would've experienced a roller-coaster ride on the way down. She entered Earth's atmosphere at nearly 10,000 miles per hour, her velocity being drastically slowed as she encountered resistance from the air. A triple sonic boom sounded outside her hull as she dropped below the sound barrier over Los Angeles.

Still red hot, trailing smoke and burning debris that had flaked off of her nose and engine, _Serenity_ fell toward the ground like a stone. Her velocity carried her out over the Valley, past Malibu, out over the ocean. As she dropped closer to the ocean, a pair of F/A-18F Hornets joined up, one on either side. The reason for this would've become readily apparent to an observer on her flight deck – dead ahead of _Serenity_ was an aircraft carrier, the number "72" painted on her superstructure, steaming at flank speed in a desperate effort to get out of _Serenity_'s way.

The pilots of the Hornets had been given orders to shoot _Serenity_ down, but – surprisingly – received countermanding orders from the commander, air group onboard the USS _Abraham Lincoln_. As the craft approached the _Lincoln_ carrier group, the Hornets peeled off. It looked like _Serenity_ would skim over _Lincoln_ and crash into the Pacific Ocean –

But just as she was about to pass over _Lincoln_, a sudden downdraft hit _Serenity_. Losing altitude, she struck _Lincoln_'s mainmast. Spinning, she bounced off the carrier's fantail with a crunch, and dropped into the ocean –

Where she, miraculously, did not sink.

_Serenity_ had survived yet another crash – like a leaf on the wind.

* * *

_gao yang jong duh goo yang_ - "motherless goat of all motherless goats"


End file.
